This invention involves the construction of a special kind of lariat rope for making lariats for use in competitive cattle roping contests that provide substantial prize money for the fastest times. Lariats of different construction are used for heel and head roping in team roping, and a still different construction is preferred for calf roping. Lariats are also used by ranch hands in everyday roping of cattle and horses as part of ranching practice and animal husbandry. The invention also involves the method of making lariat rope and lariats and novel equipment for making rope, particularly the lariat rope of this invention.
Lariats have been used in ranching and rodeos for over 100 years. The term lariat defines a rope having some form of honda or knot at one end which, when the other end of the rope is pulled through the honda, a loop is formed that is used to encircle and then tighten around the object the lariat is being used to catch. The term lasso is often used interchangeably with the term lariat.
In recent times the prize money for top times in team roping and calf roping have escalated rapidly, and competitions now exist for all levels of roping skills from world class ropers down through beginners. Currently, the prize money in the team roping finals competition may be as much as $180,000 per roper. The purse is usually broken down step wise for six places with the top time getting 29 percent and the sixth best time getting 5 percent. Competitive ropers are handicapped similar to golfers, and a competitive roper competes with those having similar handicaps.
Team Roping is the only rodeo event where two cowboys compete as partners, each sharing victory or defeat on the back of a horse. The "header" ropes a steer's horns and rides to the left. Then the "heeler" goes to work, roping both of the steer's hind legs in one of the most difficult maneuvers in rodeo. The ropers must each "dally" (wrap their rope around their saddle horn) after their head or heel catches. The time clock stops when both horses are facing the steer with ropes dallied. A five second penalty is assessed if the heeler catches only one of the steer's hind legs. In ranching practice, large cattle would be roped and taken down in this manner and one or more ranch hands or a veterinarian would rush to the immobile animal to mark, vaccinate or treat the animal for some malady.
Calf roping, which can be traced directly to the ranch work of catching calves for branding or medical treatment, has evolved into one of professional rodeo's quickest and most exciting events. The calf gets a designated head start into the rodeo arena and must trip a barrier string before the cowboy and horse can begin the chase. Once in the arena, the roper must "catch" his calf with his lariat, dismount, run to the calf, , drop the 300 pound animal to the arena floor, gather three of the calf's legs and tie them together with a six-foot "pigging" string and throw up his hands to signal the end of his run.
The Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association national final's record for Team Roping is 3.8 seconds, set at a National Finals Rodeo. There are many competitive Team Roping events all around the country, and a member of a roping team having a typical time of around 5 seconds can earn more than $20,000 per year roping only on Friday nights and weekends. With the record time for Team Roping being 3.8 seconds, the winning times usually are determined by hundredths or tenths of a second. This, combined with the prize money involved, makes the performance of the equipment used in the roping process very critical. The most important piece of equipment is the lariat.
First, the rope for a lariat must be stiffer or harder than conventional general duty ropes. This characteristic is referred to as body. This has been achieved with more twists and by twisting and final winding of the rope under high tension in the manufacturing process and finally by impregnating team roping lariats with a wax. Second, the rope or lariat must feel good in the roper's hand. This is subjective, but is a combination of weight, flexibility or stiffness, and smoothness. While feel hasn't yet been defined with a combination of objective test properties, the feel affects the roper's effectiveness and thus his selection of a lariat. Each competitive roper will typically buy 35-50 ropes per year. Next, the rope must have enough weight per inch, density, to feel and throw well, i. e. for the roper to sense where the tip of the lasso, leading portion of the loop, is and for the tip to fly in the direction of the throw.
Finally, the surface of the lariat rope must be smooth and slick enough for the rope to slide quickly on the burner of the honda as the loop is reduced to tighten around subject of the throw, i. e. the horns, legs, etc. The honda, sometimes spelled hondoo or hondo, is a small loop in one end of the rope through which most of the remainder of the rope passes to form the lasso or lariat loop. The burner is an appliance fastened to the lead portion of the honda on at least the inside portion of the rope for the rope to slide against when the loop is being reduced to tighten on the object being roped. The burner protects the rope from abrading and also reduces the resistance of the sliding rope, i. e. makes the rope faster. One common burner consists of rawhide sewn onto the honda. A honda and burner are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,643,638 and other hondas are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,165,091, 3,716,031, 4,562,793 and 4,928,634.
Generally, it is desired to have a denser rope with the same or a smaller diameter than conventional lariat rope. Attempts have been made to achieve this by twisting tighter, i. e. more twists per inch and/or by twisting under higher tension. Lariat rope made in this way are "bouncy" and the loops of these lariats tend to bounce off the surface they strike instead of staying in contact. This often makes the roper miss. The loop should actually collapse, generally into a FIG. 8, immediately after contacting the neck, etc. of the steer until the loop can be reduced to tighten onto the horns. A "bouncy" rope is too stiff to allow this to happen easily as is necessary for increasing the percentage of successful catches.
To get the desired density in the lariat rope, it has been conventional to blend polyester monofilament yarns with plied and/or cabled nylon in the strands. This technique has been used to make state of the art lariat rope, all of which were coreless, prior to the present invention, but it has made the ropes harder to manufacture. The stiffness and humidity absorption characteristics of the polyester fibers are different than those of nylon, and a careful blend has been necessary to balance density with feel and body characteristics, particularly when the lariat rope is made or used in high humidity conditions.
The conventional lariat rope has been made mostly with conventional rope-making equipment. Lariat ropes have been made by twisting three bundles of monofilament yarns, plied yarns and cabled yarns of desired length individually under tension followed by twisting the three twisted bundles together under tension to make the rope. The head box of conventional lariat rope making machines has three hooks spaced apart in-line to hold the three bundles of yarns under tension, the other ends held by a tailbox, while they are twisted into rope. Rope for making a lariat is made one short section, typically 25-40 feet long (shorter for children), at a time. This is quite different from the way rope for other applications is made. The rope section is the length needed to make a lariat. A rope section for making lariats is typically called a rope body.
After the rope section is made, the two ends are taped or tied to prevent unraveling, the ropes are soaked in hot wax to heat the ropes to about 300 degrees F. and then cooled under tension to remove any curling memory from the fibers. The honda is then tied into the rope and the burner appliance is attached as shown in the patent mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
Conventional lariat rope is a three strand rope made from nylon or a blend of nylon and polyester yarns, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,352. One very successful conventional lariat rope is made by first plying two yarns of 1260 denier containing 204 monofilaments each together with 2-6 twists per inch in the Z direction. Next, three of these plied strands are cabled together, again with 2-6 twists per inch, and wound onto cardboard bobbins. Conventional twisting, plying and cabling equipment are used to make the plied and cabled strands.
In the past, calf lariat rope has been made with either polypropylene treated with linseed oil to stiffen the rope or hemp treated with linseed oil and shellac. Surface burrs have to be removed on the hemp rope, and this type of hemp rope is sensitive to changes in humidity giving the lariat rope a different stiffness and feel that differs depending upon the level of humidity in the air. The polypropylene lariat rope doesn't have as much density, weight per unit volume or per linear foot, as desired for optimum accuracy and other performance including how the slack is pulled from the loop. Also, polypropylene rope stretches more under stress than desired.
In a totally different field, it is known to make heavy duty marine ropes and ropes for use on automatic winching machines having a core as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,563,869, 3,415,052 and 3,026,669. However, such ropes had very heavy structures, were for vastly different purposes and not suitable for lariats.